Tenure Removal Too Costly

At the Dearborn Public Schools, the administration
wanted to get rid of two teachers accused of sexual misconduct and two more
that were accused of possession of illegal substances outside of school. The
district ended up paying the four teachers a combined total of $197,353 to get
them to quit their jobs.

Yet this outcome may have been the fiscally prudent
one from the perspective of the local taxpayers. The district says its analysis
of going through a costly and lengthy tenure process in each of those cases
would have cost a total of nearly $400,000. They based this on the costs of two cases in which they did go through the tenure process.

“The perception is you are buying out a bad teacher.
‘Why are we paying these people?’” said Timothy Currier, the attorney who
handles tenure cases for Dearborn Public Schools.

But Currier said it’s cheaper than going through the
tenure process, which can cost the district more than $170,000 for two cases
and take about 10 months.

By contrast, buyouts can happen as quickly as six
months and, with a settlement, there is a certainty the teacher is gone,
Currier said. Teachers are more willing to take a settlement if their record
doesn’t show that they were fired, he added.

Other public schools have made the same decision
to settle with teachers instead of going through the tenure process.

The state House of Representatives and state Senate
recently passed a package of bills that make it easier to fire ineffective
teachers. The bills are waiting for Gov.
Rick Snyder’s expected signature.

According to documents provided by the Dearborn
Public Schools, it has settled with 12 teachers accused of wrongdoing since
2006.

“This gives
a better sense of the true cost to taxpayers of an antiquated and expensive
government employee privilege,” said Michael Van Beek, the Mackinac Center for
Public Policy’s education director. “It doesn’t matter if a district pursues
tenure charges against or strikes a deal with an ineffective teacher, taxpayers
are on the hook.”